4 ms·

> Housewifing bears a different kind of opportunity cost than breadwinning Yes. The opportunity cost of housewifing is breadwinning. The opportunity cost of b

• smfugit 3y ago
  You are splitting the cost though. Greater the time you spend on bread winning, and it always increases as work/fam responsibilities & fam size increase with time, less time you have on the home front. It makes a big diff(a real relief infact) if SO is full time manning that front.
  • lusus_naturae 3y ago
    This requires tremendous trust in the breadwinnner, though. Sexual competition is a reality, which is why infidelity happens. If the housewife/husband is deemed replaceable, then there is an implicit power differential between the breadwinner and house spouse, which opens the "lesser" half to abuse (physical, emotional, financial etc.). My recommendation to anyone considering house spousing is to have a contingency plan.
    • mydriasis 3y ago
      What an abysmal, cynical outlook this is.
    • mcshicks 3y ago
      That's why we have no fault divorce and community property laws in California at least . Evens out the power imbalance.
    • biomcgary 3y ago
      The most efficient solution for narcissism (i.e., abandonment of a non-breadwinning spouse) is not more narcissism (i.e., self-focused contingency planning). Unfortunately, in a highly individualistic (i.e., narcissistic) society, it may be the only one that is practical.
      • lusus_naturae 3y ago
        On a philosophical level I agree with you that it's not the answer. But I don't think contingency planning is narcissistic. Maybe I should define what a typical such plan looks like? To me it is simply having skills to become a breadwinner yourself should you need to. It doesn't need to be more than that. Ultimately however society needs more appreciation of how and why long-term monogamous relationships provide both individual and communal stability, and how the emotional/physical labor of house spousing provides value beyond immediate survival.
        • biomcgary 3y ago
          We largely agree. I think contingency planning is also needed for death of the breadwinner. Life insurance is always limited and sometimes not possible due to preexisting conditions. Thus, my objection is when distrust is the primary motivation for contingency planning.
    • jstarfish 3y ago
      > My recommendation to anyone considering house spousing is to have a contingency plan. Relationships are about trust and vulnerability. If you're making fucking contingency plans, you're cheating at being in a relationship and don't belong in one. My own advice would be that if you catch your spouse making contingency plans, see to it that their plan is executed as quickly and efficiently as possible. People that know they have a way out of trouble tend to do very nasty things before justifying their execution (same reason not to trust anyone of a citizenship you don't share). Get out of that relationship immediately while terms are good. The contingency will be executed by them under the worst of terms otherwise (expect to be provoked into violence or accused of spousal rape or worse, seemingly out of nowhere).
    • smfugit 3y ago
      Yup things can/will get complicated but avoidance of risk doesnt solve the og problem of burnout. And with age/time/screwing up both sides learn that. There is probably no other way to build that trust.
• yummypaint 3y ago
  I would point out that for many people the cost of paying for childcare during work hours is comparable to the income generated from said work. Those people have essentially no incentive to work unless they want to avoid their kids.
  • whinenot 3y ago
    Even if it's a wash dollar wise, staying employed often means you get healthcare and retirement benefits AND the career progression that ideally comes with long term stable employment. Trying to hop back on the treadmill after a 5-10 year absence often has a huge opportunity cost on your lifetime earnings.
    • sanderjd 3y ago
      Also, people don't need to be ashamed for often wanting to do their own adult things with other adults. It does not make you a bad parent to not want to spend all your time with your children. Balance is super important, and I think many homemakers find it lacking. Also, children like to be with other children, not just boring adults, and it's actually not that straightforward to achieve that with no daycare / preschool time for them during the week.
  • mechagodzilla 3y ago
    Even if you were actually at a pure breakeven for the stay-at-home partner for the first year: * Childcare costs decrease with age, and decrease substantially when your child reaches school age. Full-time childcare costs are typically only for the first 3-4 years of a child's life. * Even if you break even in terms of take-home pay, a stay-at-home parent that was previously working might be missing out on things like 401K/retirement contributions. * The opportunity costs to your career of taking 3-4 years off is enormous, and it's frequently difficult at best to return to work with similar pay/seniority as when you left after taking several years off (and might be effectively impossible if you've taken 10+ years off). For working professionals, it's incredibly short-sighted to look at short term childcare costs vs take-home pay solely in terms of dollars, and it's silly to to say there is 'no incentive except avoiding your kids.' The incentive in terms of dollars and job prospects over the course of your career can be huge.
• throwaway4aday 3y ago
  If both partners work then: - many more meals must be ordered in or eaten out instead of prepared from scratch - transportation cost increases, more vehicles needed which means more gas more insurance more repairs or more transit fare and now both people sacrifice possibly hours of their day to commuting - childcare services must be paid for and transportation arranged for them - the choice of housing now has the additional constraint of being within commute distance for the second job (along with other resources that must be obtained outside the home now e.g. childcare) often meaning less choice and higher cost - with both partners sharing household duties evenly, neither can take on additional work as needed whether that's taking work home, staying late or working a second job. Dividing the labor so one person manages the household and the other devotes their energies to earning money allows both to be more effective at what they do. Division of labor is the cornerstone of an advanced industrial society that makes everything possible.
  • jrno639 3y ago
    and your second income is taxed at your marginal rate, to pay for a $1 of child care you need around $1.33 to $1.50 in income. Put another way, avoiding $1 in expenses is like earning up to $1.5 at work. But the real issue is what the article points out, that this often leaves the stay at home parent “trapped” and dependent on the working spouse. What do you do when you’ve been out of the workforce 20+ years, kids out of the house (no child support), and you need to support yourself now?
    • throwaway4aday 3y ago
      If the earner dies: life insurance If the earner leaves: alimony It's not like we haven't solved these problems before. Yes, we could improve legislation around this but the basic idea is that if you have a contract with a partner where one of you earns the income and the other does the work at home then part of that contract is to recompense the person who is not working if the one who is fails to live up to their side of the bargain for whatever reason.
    • rolobio 3y ago
      I work, my wife is a homemaker with our kids. I love the fact that her work is not taxed. If she had a job, that labor would be taxed, and then the person who we would pay to watch our children would have their income taxed as well. Government would double-dip (triple-dip?) if my wife was working.